


N7 Month - Day 3: One Human

by AgeOfRogues



Series: N7 Month Tumblr Challenge - 2016 [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: normandy crash site dlc, oc shep - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:23:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8461693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgeOfRogues/pseuds/AgeOfRogues
Summary: Jamie finally bucks up the courage to visit the Normandy crash site on Alchera.She wasn't prepared for what she would experience on the ground.





	

A chill flowed down her spine, gathering in her chest and flowing along her artificial veins to her fingers and toes when she steps out of the Kodiak and onto the frozen ground of Alchera. But it had nothing to do with the planet's frigid temperature.

All around her are bits and scraps of the once proud SSV Normandy, laying in ruin across the alien landscape and frozen in place, looking like statues in a temple to a pantheon. To her, it felt more like a graveyard.

Jamie shook her head furiously, shaking off the loneliness she suddenly felt.  She had a mission to do and she would do it.  For her crew from the Normandy.  For those lost when the Normandy was destroyed.  For her own well being.  She needed closure and this had to be the way to do it.  She could ill afford distraction and regrets going in when they went through the Omega 4 relay.

With snow and ice crunching under her boot, she walked over to a large piece of hull, looking for a place to set a statue in memoriam of the twenty soldiers lost in the skies overhead.

She felt her steps falter when she recognized the section of metal she had seen from the shuttle.

Jamie quickly went back to the Kodiak and lifted the statue biotically to carry it easier to where she felt was the perfect place.

The heavy statue settled in the ice and snow, sinking several inches from its weight and Jamie looked up at the hull.  'NORMANDY' was proudly displayed, only slightly covered by snow from impact, for everyone to see and she felt her heart clench, feeling a flashback of seeing the ship for the first time on Arcturus, the same stretch of body, as it floated past the window she had been looking out of as she waited for them to allow officers to board the ship.

She sighed and turned to her right to go back to the Kodiak when a glint caught her eye when a weak ray of sunlight managed to break through the interminable cloud cover.

There in the corner where a wall of ice had been created upon impact of another large piece of ship, lay a set of dog tags. Stepping over to them, she squat to pick them up, thinking they were dropped by an Alliance soldier that had come here for recovery efforts.  When Jamie recognized the name, she stared at where they lay in shaky hands.  The tags belonged to one of the twenty lost.

She straightened where she squat and looked around for any signs of more tags laying about, the need to find them sudden and urgent.

Jamie spent the next several hours combing the grounds, finding dog tags and containers of element zero. Occasionally, she would experience flashbacks of various crewmembers when she would explore some of the larger hunks of the ship, even finding XO Pressly's datapad she had always thought was surgically attached to his hand when he had been alive.

The longer she spent looking around the graveyard for her crew's dog tags to give their families closure, the more she regretted coming alone.  This wasn't something someone should do by themselves.

Jamie walked along the edge of a cliff of ice to try to get a better view to see anything she might have missed, when her booted foot came in contact with something solid and detached, kicking it several feet towards a crevice. When she looked at it as it rolled towards the edge, it looked like a black helmet and she dove for it before it went over the side.

She rolled from her stomach to her back so she could sit up and crossed her legs in the snow, turning the helmet in her hands. She curled her fingers tightly around the composite material that made up the armor when she realized it was her N7 helmet. It had definitely seen better days, nearly unrecognizable with it's gouges and scorch marks. 

Jamie cast her gaze around for anything else that might have been hers.  Had this been where her body had landed before they found her? When she looked into the visor, seeing her eyes reflected in the shield, another flashback assaulted her. One she was intimately familiar with.

She felt the lick of pain as flames spread over her skin during re-entry, but she ignored it in order to cast one more request to her squad mates.  To Kaidan, whom she had given her heart to, asking him to watch over Melina.

A strangled sob escaped her before she could catch it, holding her helmet close. When would she stop being so fucking alone? She was one human cast in fire and steeled by situation. The few soft spots that had formed within her had been ripped out but not replaced, causing a weakness in her person. And all the expectations placed upon her were only making those weaknesses worse. 

She was just one human.  Could she do it all to protect those she loved, who were the cause of such weakness?

Jamie stood, still clutching the helmet to her breast and looking around one more time.

To avoid something like this happening again?  To make the galaxy safe for her family?

She would walk through all the layers of Hell and back to do such a thing.  Even for being just one human.

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 done! A few changes here and there, like the first flashback where she sees the Normandy for the first time on Arcturus instead of dock 422 on the Citadel. I hope you all like it! Let me know what you think, please!!


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